Who can forget the first time Darth Vader marched onto Princess Leia's ship, in his black cape and mask? Or the white hard-body suit of the stormtroopers? Or Leia's outfit as Jabba's slave? These costumes--like so many that adorned the characters of that galaxy far, far away--have become iconic. For the first time, the Lucasfilm Archives is granting full access to the original costumes of episodes IV, V, and VI, allowing them to be revealed in never-before-seen detail. In over 200 new costume photographs, sketches, and behind-the-scenes photos and notes, based on new interviews, fans will get a fresh perspective on the creation of the clothes and costume props that brought these much-loved characters to life. Star Wars Costumes: The Original Trilogy affords both new and longtime Star Wars fans an intimate look at the unforgettable costumes from this classic series.

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Product description

Review

" If you're a hardcore fan of Star Wars or filmmaking, or if you're considering creating a costume of your own for cosplay or Halloween or just wandering the streets of Mos Eisley, this book is a must-read." -Big Shiny Robot

"This book is a cosplayer's delight. If you or your kids have any interest at all in dressing up like a character from the original Star Wars trilogy, the photos, images, and information in this book will help guide your creations extremely well.It is a perfect gift for Star Wars fans, cosplayers, and those interested in costume and design; this book is the ultimate resource."-GeekMom

About the Author

Brandon Alinger is currently the chief operations officer of the Los Angeles branch of The Prop Store of London, the industry leader in movie props and costumes. He lives in Los Angeles.

John Mollo made his debut as a costume designer on Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. He went on to create the costume designs for Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back and Alien, among others. He lives in Oxford, England.

Nilo Rodis-Jamero served as the assistant art director and concept artist on Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back as well as a costume designer for Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. He lives in Vancouver.

Aggie Rodgers was the costume designer on Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, as well as American Graffiti and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She lives in San Francisco.

Gosh, it really took a while for this book to come out considering the previous costume book Dressing a Galaxy which came out in 2005.

It's a fantastic book just like the earlier one. It's a huge 226-page hardcover with lots of wonderful photos and in depth writeup.

Star Wars Costumes focuses on the costumes created for Star Wars original trilogy Episodes IV, V and IV. It's really cool to look at the huge variety of costumes used in the movies.

There are costumes for Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, Boba Fett, bounty hunters, Princess Leia's skimpy slave dancer outfit, Darth Vadar, Stormtroopers and many more. Across the movies, there are also updates to the costumes so you'll get to see Darth Vadar's original and the updated one after A New Hope. What I find interesting is to see that most costume designs have aged quite well while some not so well.

The photographs are great. They are high resolution with close ups just in case you want to examine the seams. There are photographs almost on every page. Some sketches and concept designs are also included.

The text is even more in depth compared to Dressing a Galaxy, talking about the making of those costumes. Forewords are written by costume designers John Mollo, Nilo Rodis-Jamero and Aggie Rodgers. It's a very insightful writeup by author Brian Alinger.

Highly recommended to all Star Wars fans.

By the way, there are two publishers for this book, namely Chronicle Books who is distributing for USA and Canada, and Titan Books for UK, Europe and other places. Prices of the book will vary slightly from the publishers and of course places where you buy it.

(See more pictures of the book on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

This Star Wars book, featuring costume design production aspects of the Original Trilogy, is one I had longed for years, but unfortunately it cannot qualify as “complete”, and most definitely won’t deserve a subtitle like “The Uniforms of the Star Wars Universe”.

Unlike previous Star Wars production books like the SW Chronicles, Sculpting A Galaxy, SW Blueprints or Rinzler’s Making-of-books I didn’t find it really too exciting holding it in my arms.

The good stuff:- Finally, costume designer John Mollo gets a most welcome opportunity to share plenty of anecdotes and production details which was undoubtedly my personal highlight (although I would have loved to see him share a few secrets about the rank badge systems and the choice of colours which had always suggested an echo of the uniforms of the 18th Century Royal Navy, i.e. blue naval officers and red army marines, IMHO)- NEW HOPE heroes in rare publicity shots (e.g. book cover)- Rare behind-the-scenes images and previously unseen scene images- NEW HOPE X-Wing (pg. 67) and JEDI pilot helmet gallery (too bad we never saw the erased scene of the B-Wings taking out an imperial Star Destroyer to fully appreciate it)- Tatooine protocol and Death Star droid- Sandstorm outfits from the deleted scene in JEDI- Rebel technician uniforms from the Headquarters Frigate briefing room scene- Ignorance of erroneous Expanded Universe terminology (Samurai-helmeted imperials are identified as security guards, Death Star gunner helmet reveals the correct proportions of the imperial logo – Lucasfilm Licensing please take notice and have the incorrect proportions in licensed products like these latest headphones fixed!)

In general the costume pictures with mannequins reminded me too much of the costumes on display during the various Star Wars exhibits of previous years, and they are apparently all post-NEW HOPE. Original / vintage costume test shots are few and far between, I had seen more of those in Sansweet’s Star Wars Action Figure Archive book (does Kenner/Hasbro keep all of these for action figure design references?).

The really disturbing aspect is the lack of NEW HOPE costumes and vintage images. While I understand that probably most fans won’t mind the lack of imperial and rebel uniform and jumpsuit variations, I would have expected to see Luke’s orange jacket from the medal award ceremony (previously worn in the cantina by that alien character supposedly going by the name of “Ponda Baba” and IIRC a design licensed to Revlon for a limited production series of this jacket, then) and Biggs Darklighter’s Tatooine jacket (from the deleted scene), but most definitely the Star Wars costume we all saw first in the very first film - that of Princess Leia’s rebel soldiers.

Well, there is no appropriate costume shot of that iconic costume in either color or black and white, except for a b&w publicity still showing two rebel soldiers run past an Artoo unit. I found this rather hard to believe and to accept, even though John Mollo provides vivid descriptions of the materials and design process over two book pages (including design sketches and prototypes)

It’s still a very nice book I’d add to the Top-Ten-must-have-SW-books, but for the above reasons, I couldn’t possibly give it a 5 star rating. So I keep my fingers crossed that there will still be a “Complete Costumes of the Original Trilogy” book published in my lifetime.